Ct)E Work of a 

l^tUage €tiucation 
Association 



D. C. HEATH 



tillage (CDttcatuin 
association 



CJe Work of a 

l^tllage Ctiucation 
^0soctattott 

AN ADDRESS BY 

D. C. HEATH 



Prepared by request and read at the Confer- 
ence of Education Associations 
at Newark, N. J. 
April, 1 901 



Printed for 

Conference of Education Associations 

1902 



Tl-*? '. iSftAHV OF 
eCNGRESS, 

APR. 3 M902 

CI ass ^t^XXo No. 
COPY B. 






COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY D. C. HEATH 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Woxh ot a 

l^tUase dEtiucatton 

Association' 




N dealing with the subject 
assigned me I have found 
it extremely difficult to 
separate in thought the 
work of a village from that 
of a city education association. My ex- 
perience with an education association has 
been in a city, but in a city made up of a 
dozen villages which combined constitute 
the seven wards of the city of Newton, 
Massachusetts. But while ours is a city 
association, it is doing its work largely by 
committees, these committees forming in 
effect as many village associations. 

^ An address delivered by request, at the Conference 
of Education Associations, Newark, N. J. , April, 1 90 1 . 



a aatUage thmation ^^miation 

Under these circumstances I find myself 
in the position of the Wellesley girls of 
early days, when far less individual freedom 
was permitted the students than now, and 
when the maiden president was often em- 
barrassed by her double position as magis- 
trate of the community and mother of the 
daughters committed to her care. She was 
greatly troubled because the girls estab- 
lished the custom of going about to kiss 
one another good-night. She remonstrated 
with them in chapel, saying, " We are a 
village, and the people in a village do not 
go about ringing door bells and waking 
people up to kiss them good-night." 

Soon after, the girls sent a formal peti- 
tion to the president asking to be exempted 
from some hardship or other. Then the 
president arose in chapel, with tears of 
injured mother-love flowing down her 
cheeks, and said, " The idea of chil- 
dren presenting a formal petition to their 

2 



a i^illage €tm;cation ajsisoctatton 

mother as if she were a tyrant to be feared ! 
We are a family, and members of a family 
do not engross their petitions on parch- 
ment." At their next meeting the girls 
" Resolved : That we cannot make any real 
progress until we find out whether we are 
a family or a village." 

Notwithstanding the programme calls 
for a paper on village associations, I find 
myself using the city side of my brain, 
and you may therefore find that much 
that I say is applicable alike to city and 
village associations. 

I shall assume at the outset that you 
have started a Village Education Associa- 
tion because you fully realized : — 

That the chief function of one genera- 
tion is to put the next on the stage, and 
that your association will be an aid in ful- 
filling this most important duty ; 

That before you started it, you saw 
clearly its necessity, and understood just 
3 



a a^dlage education ajsjsociation 

the object for which it was to come into 
existence, otherwise you might fritter away 
a good deal of valuable time and do the 
cause more harm than good by discount- 
ing beforehand any future and better con- 
sidered movement in behalf of the schools. 

I hope that you have not formed it 
simply because it is the fashion, for in 
that event it will not live long and will 
accomplish little while it lives ; and dying 
an early death, it will do harm by giving 
teachers and the public the impression that 
the schools and the educational community 
have been weighed in the balance and have 
not been found wanting. 

I also assume that in forming your 
association you have not aimed to add 
another to the thousand excellent educa- 
tion associations already in existence, con- 
ducted by teachers and professional edu- 
cators. It would be useless for us parents 
to try to reveal to the world a new theory 
4 



a t^illaije c^tiucation association 

and practice of education. This is best 
done by the experts who have had their 
local and national associations from early 
times, and who are better able than are 
we to discover what is the science, and 
what should be the art, of education. 

I also assume that you have not set 
yourselves up as censors of the teachers 
or of the school authorities, or even given 
the community the impression that you 
know more about schools than they do. 

That you have not announced your in- 
tention to reform the schools. They may 
need it, — they may not. In most cases 
this remains to be found out later ; but 
whether they need reforming or not, you 
have probably not forgotten that an asso- 
ciation that undertakes to reform every- 
thing will not be likely to reform any- 
thing, but will in the end need reforming 
itself most of all. 

I assume that you are moving cautiously 

5 



a Mlla^t €t)ucat(on ajsjsociatfon 

and not intentionally trespassing upon any- 
body's prerogatives, or, as some one has 
well phrased it, " you are practicing a con- 
servative radicalism through a radical con- 
servatism." 

That you are assuming at the outset 
that the teachers and school officers are as 
good as can be had, or at least as good 
as you deserve. If they are not, that will 
appear in due time as a result of the legit- 
imate work of your association. 

May I not also infer that you found 
that you needed an association to aid you 
in finding out just what is being done in 
your schools, or, as the Brookline asso- 
ciation has well put it, " to interpret the 
schools to their patrons ? " For in these 
days parents rarely visit the schools and 
teachers no longer have the time or oppor- 
tunity to visit the parents. Should the 
parents visit the schools I think they 
would find the superintendent, the teach- 
6 



a i^dlage CDucatton ajs^^ociatton 

ers, and the school committee much more 
efRcient than the average citizen realizes, 
and probably would find the heating, the 
lighting, the ventilation, and other sanitary- 
arrangements much poorer than they had 
suspected. 

Perhaps you had a still better reason 
for forming your association, namely, to 
find out your full duty as parents, and 
through the association to gain help in 
doing that duty. 

If you have found that yours is prima- 
rily a parents' rather than a teachers' asso- 
ciation, that it is a home as well as a school 
association, you have probably decided, as 
I have, that our organizations should be 
called Home and School Associations and 
not Education Associations, which in one 
sense they are not, and which in any sense 
is liable to be wrongly understood. 

If you have found yourselves and your 
duty you have doubtless begun to cast the 

7 



a i^tUage Ctiwcation ^0jsociation 

beam out of your own eye and to see more 
clearly how to cast the mote out of the 
eye of your brother superintendent, school- 
committee-man, and teacher. 

Having advanced thus far, you have 
doubtless learned that one of the chief 
functions of such a body is to create pub- 
lic sentiment and to arouse public spirit, 
for with the right quality and quantity of 
public spirit your labor is not in vain. 
And do not forget that, as Mr. Howells 
says, " You have no right to expect public 
spirit from anybody but the public." 

You will therefore lay plans to interest 
the public as early and as fully as possible 
in your work, for it is the public that pays 
the taxes, and it is the taxes that help to 
do in our schools what superintendent, 
school board, and teachers may have long 
desired to do but cannot accompHsh with- 
out the proper appropriations. When 
the people are thoroughly aroused almost 
8 



a tillage (BDucation a^jsoctatton 

anything can be done that it is desirable 
to do with and in the schools. 

The people should be interested, be- 
cause they own the schools ; while the 
teachers are employed to give their best 
thought, time, and strength to serving the 
owners. It is therefore for the taxpayers 
to say whether the schools are the best 
they are willing to have or are capable of 
making. It is for the education associa- 
tions to gracefully and skillfully bring 
home to the taxpayer such information 
concerning the schools and concerning his 
duty toward them as will cause him to 
will to do that duty. 

Having thus formed your association 
with intelligent purpose you will be anx- 
ious to learn next just what machinery you 
need and how best to keep it going with- 
out friction and with the most desirable 
results. Therefore I may be pardoned 
some suggestions based on experience, 

9 



a mila^t Ctiucation ajsjsociatton 

for what has once been done can usually 
be done again. 

First, divide the whole membership into 
committees, each of which will take the 
responsibility of investigating and dis- 
cussing the special work assigned to it or 
chosen by it. This makes every member 
an active member. Select a good, wide- 
awake, intelligent chairman for each com- 
mittee, and throw on him the responsi- 
bility of keeping his committee busy. 

The committees may be made up ac- 
cording to the members' interests, and yet 
I think that in large villages or cities the 
members living in a given neighborhood 
or ward should make one committee, those 
in another section another committee and 
so on. The members of a committee will 
then know one another, and the parlor 
meetings (for I advise these) can be con- 
veniently attended. 

It is a good plan for each committee to 

lO 



a i^tUage thntation ^mtiation 

send notices of its meetings to the whole 
association, in order that other members 
interested in the special topic to be dis- 
cussed may be present if they so desire. 
Besides, by this plan other committees are 
spurred to better work, or more frequent 
meetings, when they thus discover that 
they may be falling behind. 

When a committee having some special 
subject in charge is ready to report, a 
meeting of the whole association may be 
called to hear and discuss the report, and 
the talking will be at a definite mark and 
progress will be made. 

In this connection it is worth while to 
suggest that it is better that speakers from 
abroad should be engaged to talk, not on 
general educational subjects, but on the 
special topics, or one of the special topics 
which the association has under considera- 
tion, or on a topic that will help to solve 
some local problem. 
II 



a t^iUage CDttcatton ^^jjoctatton 

By concentrating our whole attention 
on the subjects of daily medical inspection 
of schools and the providing of play- 
grounds for the children, and by securing 
speakers who have discussed these special 
topics, we have the unanimous vote of the 
Board of Health and the unanimous vote 
of the school committee of Newton for 
daily medical inspection, and we are now 
expecting the Board of Aldermen to make 
the small appropriation which the Board 
of Health asks for this purpose. 

We have also secured a playground of 
several acres, centrally located, for the use 
of three wards, the city appropriating one 
half the money for it and the citizens 
raising the other half by subscription. 

Teachers should be welcomed as mem- 
bers, not so much with a view to helping 
or criticising them as to get their point 
of view on all questions, and that they 
may set the association right as to the 

12 



a a^illage Ctiucation ajj^octation 

conditions which actually exist in the 
schools. 

Teachers ought to welcome, and I think 
they will welcome, such an opportunity 
to get their views and needs before the 
people. 

A few days ago I asked the superinten- 
dent of schools of a small village that has 
an education association, what he had to 
say in favor of such associations, and he 
replied, " There are three directions in 
which our association has done good, and 
only three. First, it has kept an intelligent 
class of people interested in the schools ; 
second, it has given the cranks an oppor- 
tunity to discover that they are cranks, and 
third, it has established a medium through 
which teachers can get certain matters 
before the people without volunteering 
information, which they will never do." 

Having a fair number of teachers and 
about one fourth of the school board as 
13 



a i^tUage CDwcatton ajs^octatton 

members of our Newton Association, we 
have hit upon the happy plan of making 
them a special committee on reforms with- 
in the schools ; in other words, we have 
set the school people to reforming them- 
selves, a much more agreeable way for 
them and for us. 

The discussion of questions in the asso- 
ciation suggests to the school people what 
reforms they may well undertake. The 
looking-glass can be held up to them in 
such a way that they discover their blem- 
ishes without having them pointed out 
specifically, and the school board man will 
get point after point, and will straightway 
take many of them to his board, and 
before you are aware of it, he will have 
some of your suggested reforms well under 
way. 

At one of our meetings last year we had 
under discussion the possible not to say 
probable but unknown defects in children's 

14 



a i^lllage CDucatton ajJjJoctation 

sight and hearing. A school board mem- 
ber came to me after the meeting and 
said, " Why should we not test the sight 
and hearing of the children in our Newton 
schools ? " Of course I replied that we 
should, and that the numerous oculists in 
the city would help to make the test an 
inexpensive one. He early brought the 
matter to the attention of the board, and 
an appropriation was made to try the plan 
in a few schools as an experiment. I feel 
tolerably sure that this test will lead to the 
examination of the eyes, if not the ears, 
of our whole school population. 

It is also a good thing to have some 
member of the school board explain to you 
periodically the new things contemplated 
or under way in the school board. The 
help in such cases is mutual. 

It has been suggested that we should 
have the candidates for the school board, 
or their friends, appear at one of our meet- 

15 



a tillage CDucation a^jsociation 

ings and give such information about the 
proposed new members as would help our 
association to vote intelligently, but we 
imperatively refuse to entangle the asso- 
ciation in politics in any way. We have 
been asked to make an effort to get women 
on the school board, and to take sides in 
other matters which political parties are 
interested to accomplish, but we have in- 
variably refused, because we do not believe 
that politics should have anything what- 
ever to do with the schools, and because 
we feel that the moment we take sides in 
politics our association will be doomed. 

It is a good thing to have a social half 
hour at the beginning of each meeting to 
promote acquaintance between members 
and between parents and teachers. It will 
be found also that some members will ex- 
press their opinions in this social half hour 
who would not do so in the formal meet- 
ing. 

i6 



a Mlla^t Ctiucation ajsjsoctation 

I am inclined to think, too, that a query 
box would help to stir up interest. Cer- 
tain parents or teachers may wish the 
association to discuss some question which 
they would not like to bring up in the 
open meeting, or with which they would 
not wish their names connected, and such 
questions can go into the query box. 

Again, many members will be too timid 
to speak, as I have suggested, and this 
plan would afford them an opportunity to 
give their views to the association and get 
the views of the association in return with- 
out speaking ; or if a parent is inclined to 
complain of some feature of the school 
work, but for some reason does not wish 
to take the matter to the teacher or super- 
intendent, he can in this way bring it 
before the association, have it discussed 
by the teachers, the superintendent, and 
others, and thus get a solution of his 
problem without making it personal. 
17 



a a^fllage Ctiwcatton SiSjsoctation 

Having your machinery thus well ad- 
justed, and having learned how to run it, 
you should set it at work on the thing 
or the things you most need locally and 
are most likely to accomplish, for accom- 
plishing something will encourage and 
strengthen you and will make you seem 
of some worth to the community. " No- 
thing succeeds like success." 

But I must hasten to some of the spe- 
cific things which an education association 
can undertake to create public sentiment, 
and can do after that sentiment has been 
aroused ; and I speak first of what seems 
to me the larger work of our own associa- 
tion. It covers that portion of the child's 
life for which the parents are chiefly re- 
sponsible. Even with two sessions a day 
the child is in school but five hours out 
of the twenty-four (or five out of the six- 
teen waking hours), and this for only nine 
out of the twelve months of the year. For 



a Bttlase CDucation ajsjsociatton 

the out-of-school portion, or far the greater 
portion, of the child's life the parent must 
be responsible, but in the majority of cases, 
and for the larger part of this time, nobody 
seems to have much care, and yet it is a 
period fraught with manifold dangers and 
possibilities. 

The opportunities here for character 
forming cannot be overvalued. Our asso- 
ciation is therefore giving special attention 
to the out-of-school life, and such things 
connected with schools as seem to be 
more in our province than in that of the 
school officials, and about which school 
officials can do little, if anything. 

The thing that a parent is most solici- 
tous about when he sends his child to school 
is the health of that child. He knows that 
without health all effiDrt is comparatively 
futile, and that with good health other 
desirable things are likely to come in good 
time. Therefore the hygienic conditions 

19 



^ i^tUage cBtJUcatton association 

under which the child is placed at school 
are of the greatest importance, and yet 
forty-nine out of fifty parents never seek 
to discover just what those conditions are. 
We parents place great stress upon 
wholesome living. We build our houses 
so that we may have good ventilation, sun- 
shine, good drainage, freedom from dust, 
and with every condition and appliance 
necessary to keep our children in perfect 
physical condition ; and then for nine 
months of the year send them to school 
where they are given over to other con- 
ditions with which we do not even famil- 
iarize ourselves, and which may or may 
not be as good as the home conditions, 
but which should be as good or better in 
respect to cleanliness, wholesomeness, at- 
tractiveness, and refinement of living. In 
fact hygienically the poorest schoolhouse 
in a village should be as good as our best 
dwelling house. 

20 



^ mila^t CDucation ajsjsociation 

It seems to me, therefore, that first, last, 
and everywhere, the health of the children 
and the sanitary condition of the school- 
house, cellar, yard, and surrounding prop- 
erty, should have our attention. 

If the site chosen for your school be 
the best in town instead of the cheapest ; 
if the building stand on a sandy or gravelly 
soil easily drained ; if the slope of the land 
in the vicinity insure perfect and proper 
drainage of the school yard ; if air, light, 
and sunshine have free access to the build- 
ing all the year round ; if the supply of 
water be inexhaustible and its purity abso- 
lutely above suspicion — then you repre- 
sent an exceptional community and are 
entitled to our heartiest congratulations. 

In Belgium, Germany, Austria, and 
other foreign countries, sites for school- 
houses cannot be selected until approved 
by a bureau of hygiene or a physician ap- 
pointed for that purpose. 

21 



a t^dlage €tiucatton ajSjsociatton 

Every village in America should have 
at least one sanitary inspector of schools, 
and the village education association ought 
to gain the assent of the people to an in- 
spector who would visit the school build- 
ings at least once a month ; and it is best 
that that visit should not be made on any 
regular day, otherwise the inspector may 
not see things as they actually exist. 

We insist on sanitary conditions in the 
cow barns from which our milk supply 
comes. Can we do less in reference to the 
buildings where our children congregate 
for five or six hours a day? 

Unfortunately, most sanitary inspection 
made at present does not take place until 
the unsanitary conditions exist, and often 
not until the conditions reveal themselves 
in diphtheria or typhoid or scarlet fever. 

Statistics show that the death rate among 
school children in America is higher than 
in Europe, and presumably because we 
11 



a i^dlage cBtiucation aigjsociatton 

have paid less attention to the proper 
hygiene of our school buildings. 

If you cannot obtain such sanitary in- 
spection as I have suggested, could not a 
committee from your association furnish a 
report twice a year on the sanitary condi- 
tion of the schoolhouses ? Might not cir- 
culars be issued by the Board of Health, 
ojr, if you have none, by the association, 
which in the hands of parents and teachers 
would go far to promote health and pre- 
vent disease among the young, ignorant, 
or careless? 

Do not cease to challenge the water sup- 
ply of your country and village schools. 
Even in a city the providing of a simple 
and inexpensive water filter may in itself 
justify the existence of an education asso- 
ciation, if it does nothing else. 

The toilet rooms of a schoolhouse need 
constant and careful attention, and it 
should be borne in mind that better than 

23 



a a^dlage CDucatton ajs^octation 

occasional disinfectants are constant clean- 
liness and good ventilation. 

Have you ever inquired when and how 
the school buildings are cleaned and how. 
often the floors are washed ? Would you 
be surprised to learn that the windows 
and floors are washed only once a year — 
in the long vacation before the opening 
of school ? 

In the city of Boston a few years ago, 
during a careful study of the sanitary con- 
ditions of our schools, it was learned that 
the floors of seventy-seven of the build- 
ings had never been washed since they 
were laid, and therefore it is not surprising 
to learn that consumption (a disease known 
to be caused largely by dust) has been far 
more prevalent among Boston teachers 
than among those of foreign cities where the 
floors are much more frequently washed. 

While you are waiting to secure the ap- 
pointment of a sanitary inspector you can 
24 



91 a^illage CDucation ajsjioctatton 

do a great deal to create a public senti- 
ment which will demand and secure the 
thorough cleansing of floors, desks, walls, 
woodwork, and windows, and can see that 
all stagnant water is run off from the 
pipes or pump, and that all drinking-cups 
are disinfected. 

. And bad ventilation, too, is worth look- 
ing after. Expert opinion as to the effects 
of bad air is to be found. It has been 
discovered that the work of children falls 
off forty per cent in badly ventilated build- 
ings. Cannot an association give this im- 
portant matter the attention which the 
school committee will not or cannot, and 
deal with it in so skillful and politic a way 
as not to offend anybody, and receive the 
hearty thanks, not to say the financial aid, 
of the fathers and mothers ? 

An exit for impure air, and pure air sup- 
plied not at intervals but constantly and 

25 



a mila^t Ctiucation ajsjsoctatton 

without a draft, is a desideratum in most 
of our school buildings, even in the com- 
paratively modern ones. 

. Examinations of the eyes of quite a quar- 
ter of a million of school children have been 
made at various times and places in this 
country, and by painstaking inspectors, 
and it has been clearly demonstrated that 
not only does defective vision exist in a 
large percentage of them, but that visual 
defects are constantly increasing. 

A village association may easily test 
this matter with the permission of the 
school committee, which ought readily to 
be had, and it can also discover whether 
school buildings poorly lighted cannot be 
improved in this respect, and have an eye 
on buildings being erected and suggest 
ample light from the left of the desk. 

Speaking of desks, I am reminded that 
0.6 



a a^illaee €t)ucat(on a^jsoctatton 

when I was a village schoolmaster I dis- 
covered that the seats were such that the 
small pupils could not sit erect and in a 
comfortable posture with the feet resting 
firmly on the floor. The feet could not 
touch the floor except by contortions of 
the body which foretold deformity in grow- 
ing children. Think of sitting on such 
seats for two or three hours at a time, when 
we adults find it hard to sit in a cushioned 
pew for an hour ! 

Let me revert again to the eyes of the 
children long enough to say that I have 
often seen blackboards and maps placed 
between two windows, toward which the 
child must turn suddenly, and at which 
he must often look for a long time. This 
in itself is enough to ruin the normal sight 
of a growing child. 

And can you think of anything more 
important than daily medical inspection of 
27 



a muait (Etiucatfon ajsjsociatton 

the schools to prevent the spread of infec- 
tious diseases, and to save lives and health 
and even money by obviating the necessity 
of closing the schools for long periods ? I 
cannot, and therefore this is the first thing 
our association has taken up, and with sat- 
isfactory results. 

Of course this is a thing more needed 
and perhaps more easily managed in cities 
than in villages, and yet I do not see why 
a village should not delegate to one, or 
some, of its physicians the duty of calling 
at the school building in the morning for 
the purpose of examining any children 
that the teacher thinks may be coming 
down with some disease which is likely to 
be communicated to the rest of the chil- 
dren. It takes but a few minutes of the 
doctor's time, and therefore the cost is 
very slight. 

It is surprising to me, as it doubtless is 
to you, that this very important matter has 
28 



a i^illage cBtiucatfon ajsjsociatton 

not received earlier and more attention. I 
was surprised to learn at the late meeting 
of the superintendents of schools of the 
country that it has only just come before 
them for consideration, and yet they all 
declare that it is the most important thing 
that the association can consider. 

Perhaps this function of medical in- 
spector, and that of the sanitary inspector 
already mentioned, could be combined in 
one person, provided that person were a 
physician in good standing. 

If an association cannot do anything 
better at first in this direction it can put 
up some " Do " and " Don't " cards 
adapted to the season and placed in each 
room, to enforce elementary lessons of 
hygiene and health. 

Home study is now receiving a good 
deal of attention among us, with the result 
that most thoughtful parents and some 

29 



a a^dlage Ctiucatton ajsjsoctation 

teachers feel that under the age of fourteen 
it should be discouraged and in some cases 
forbidden. It is exceedingly important 
that parents and pupils, and teachers for 
that matter, should not forget that three 
hours of good, earnest work are better for 
instruction and for discipline than five 
hours of indifferent, listless loafing with 
one's book. 

The question of children's entertain- 
ments, both in kind and amount, is an- 
other matter that has troubled parents, 
and over which they, rather than the 
schools, should have control. Children 
quote one another in their wish to have this, 
that, or the other kind of entertainment, 
and as strength is dissipated and possi- 
bly health destroyed by unseasonable and 
otherwise wrong practices in this direction, 
why should not the people of a village get 
together and talk over what would be a 
30 



a i^iUage Ctiucatton ajsjsoctatton 

reasonable position for the neighborhood 
to take in such things ? or in other words, 
why should not the parents agree upon cer- 
tain evenings of the week when such enter- 
tainments may be had, and even go so far 
as to help provide these entertainments, 
and thus have an oversight over the young 
men and women which is not now prac- 
ticed ? The teachers would join in helping 
regulate the matter, for they feel that 
much ill health which is charged to over- 
study in the schools is due rather to un- 
seasonable hours at parties. 

Again, the entertainment of children in 
school is an important matter, and an ed- 
ucation association should get the local 
lawyer to give a simple talk to children 
on common law or the duties and functions 
of citizenship ; the architect could tell 
them about his work ; the banker could 
give a talk that would start not a few 
young men on the way to saving and suc- 

31 



^ mila^t €Ducat(on a^jjociatton 

cess ; the manufacturer could give inter- 
esting accounts of his factory and produc- 
tion, and so on through the catalogue of 
professions and occupations. You have 
never asked them to do it, nor have we, 
but why should we not ? 

Another subject which naturally inter- 
ests the parent more than the teacher is 
that of morals and manners. The six sec- 
ular days of the week are the laboratories 
in which right and wrong actions are actu- 
ally seen, and they can be analyzed and 
commented on at a time when it is natural 
to infer the moral lesson, and when the 
ethical bearing of the child's conduct may 
easily and naturally be brought to his at- 
tention. 

Are teachers doing as much in this di- 
rection as the parents wish ? In most cases 
I think they are not ; but it is a topic on 
which parents can confer through an edu- 
32 



a i^tUage education aisjsoctation 

cation association, and later by conference 
with the teachers can agree upon a code 
which might and should be followed. 

I think that much more can be done in 
the schools in the way of direct teaching 
of morals and manners, but teachers have 
to be careful about both, as they feel that 
they may offend the parents. 

As a nation our children are sadly lack- 
ing in good manners, and I am wondering 
if it would be in every way a sin and a 
misfortune to have in the schools a small 
manual containing precepts for good be- 
havior and for politeness. Every pupil 
should be taught the code of the more re- 
fined circles of society. In the hotel, at 
the dinner party, or in the public convey- 
ance, everybody meets everybody, and has 
frequent occasions for understanding and 
practicing the precepts of conventional 
good breeding. 
. Since the pupil is likely to take instruc- 

33 



a a^tllage CDucatton ajsjsociatton 

tion in these things with more authority 
as coming from his teacher, it seems to me 
that the parents should let the teacher 
know how far they would like her to go 
in these matters. 

Children's reading out of school is an- 
other matter for a parent to manage. The 
reading in school is probably good enough. 

Can you think of a more potent and 
wholesome influence on the mental and 
moral and even physical make-up of your 
boy and girl than good books, and can 
you think of a more disintegrating influ- 
ence on mind, morals, and physical health 
than weak and pernicious books ? 

I count this matter of children's litera- 
ture most important because the most neg- 
lected of anything that our special com- 
mittees are called upon to consider. 

Books and papers are after all to be the 
chief educators in after life. Here at least 

34 



a i^ttlage Ctiwcation ajsj5ociat(on 

the children pursue an elective course. To 
teach them to choose wisely these silent 
masters who are to mould their lives is one 
of the best services we can render them. 
For lack of such help they patronize that 
host of demoralizing teachers who await 
them on the news-stands and who corrupt 
their minds by sensational tales or tainted 
novels. 

In nothing is a guiding hand more 
needed than in the friendship of books; 
and if the cooperation of parents be se- 
cured, the present ravenous consumption 
of low literature will be checked and a 
better taste formed. There is no preven- 
tive of a bad taste like the acquisition of 
a good one. 

Might it not be well to appoint a com- 
mittee to make up a list of books such as 
can be recommended for children's read- 
ing? The teachers, and the librarian if 
you have one, would be glad to help, 

35 



a aatuage education ajs^octation 

and those who read books before they are 
put into the Sunday-school libraries, and 
the women's clubs and others can help. 

This reminds me that an association can 
do effective work to secure a good local 
library, if you do not have one, and in any 
event for a good school library. People 
will often give books, or money to buy 
books, and publishers furnish now an ex- 
cellent list of good books for such a pur- 
pose at a very low cost. 

If you have a public library which has 
no children's department, one should be 
started. You know without my narrating 
it, how much is being done all over the 
country in the way of correlating the pub- 
lic library with the school. 

Members of village associations should 
also see to it that the children participate 
in the benefits of any traveling library 
schemes which may be in operation in the 
near-by larger towns. 
36 



a a^illage €Ducat(on ajs^oci'ation 

In this connection much may be learned 
from what is being done in the public 
libraries of Boston, Hartford, Chicago, 
etc. These libraries also issue lists of 
suitable books for children which can be 
followed with absolute safety. 

The association might also bring influ- 
ence to bear upon the local newsdealer to 
prevent the circulation of harmful trash 
among the young people. 

Book clubs may be formed, by which 
twenty people, for example, each buy 
one book and thereby gain the privilege 
of reading twenty books. The twenty 
books may be deposited in the small libra- 
ries when another twenty are bought, and 
begin their cheerful round, and a library 
may thus be built up. 

We do not stop to realize that for more 
than half of the child's waking hours he is 
" on the road," so to speak, between school 
37 



a BtUage Ctiucatton ajsjsociatiott 

and home. Neither the home nor the 
school is fully responsible for him, or at 
least they are not fully looking after him. 
This is a very important time of a 
child's life. This is the time when he is 
being influenced for good or bad by his 
playmates, who often, sad to say, have 
more influence with him than have his 
parents. Many a life has been made or 
marred between school and home, but 
whose business is it to look after the child 
during this period ? The school claims 
that it cannot and should not, and the 
parent does not, but should, and therefore 
I believe that one of the most important 
things a parents' association may do is to 
provide playgrounds and games as well, 
and oversight of those games, that parents 
may know that their children are being 
safely employed. Therefore a committee 
looking after this subject could do much 
good. 

38 



a a^tllage CDucatton ajsjjoctatiott 

Villages do not need playgrounds as 
much as cities, and yet villages should 
have playgrounds that belong to the vil- 
lage rather than to individuals. Play- 
grounds are in my judgment more impor- 
tant to the future welfare of the village 
than parks, franchises for street railways, 
or the location of tax-paying buildings. 

If you already have playgrounds they are 
very likely not fitted with apparatus, and 
portions may not be set off for the smaller 
children ; or if that be the case, you cer- 
tainly have not some one appointed, per- 
haps a high school boy (if there be a high 
school) to teach the children games and to 
act as umpire and see that there is no un- 
seemly conduct. 

I believe strongly in play and its good 
effects, but in intelligent rather than aim- 
less play, and therefore I advise that edu- 
cation associations should give it much 
more attention than it has ever had. 
39 



a a^illage education a^jJoctatton 

Play has a moral and intellectual as well 
as a physical value. You must have no- 
ticed that men having great capacity for 
play have also great capacity for work, and 
I believe more strongly than most of you 
probably do that the college boy who has 
judiciously engaged in some form of ath- 
letics is likely to do better mental work 
than the boy who has not ; and the value 
of play is heightened when it calls forth 
the fundamental forms of human activity 
such as are used by the race in construct- 
ing, overcoming difficulties, attacking, de- 
fending, cooperating, and all the social 
arts that have occupied mankind for ages. 
Formal gymnastics will not so well pro- 
duce manliness, energy, courage, fairness, 
endurance and a proper knowledge of 
how to take defeats. 

If the teacher will overlook or join in the 
games, he will find it a harvest field, if he 
desires to know the children as they really 
40 



are, for on the playground the child is not 
under restraints and acts his real self. 



Most small villages and many large ones 
have no superintendent of schools, and 
the children in many villages must leave 
home to prepare for college. A village 
education association can get the villages 
and country school districts along electric 
car lines to unite in one good high school 
and combine to employ a superintendent. 

Then, too, the ladies in the association 
who know the advantages of the Kinder- 
garten can induce the parents of the little 
children to join in a petition to establish a 
kindergarten when the school authorities 
are not likely to because of the expense 
and because there is no demand. With 
the young children taken care of in the 
kindergarten and primary school, neigh- 
borhoods could combine and centralize 
41 



a l^ttlage cEtiucatton ajS)2iociat(on 

grammar school pupils and have a strong 
union school instead of several weak, un- 
classified district schools. 

Evening schools have never been in 
vogue in villages, but why should they 
not? Many country boys have to work 
all summer, and attend only the winter 
school, and many village children who 
have short terms of school and few whole- 
some diversions outside the home in the 
evening, might profit much by the right 
kind of evening school. 

Manual Training is another factor in 
education which the country child has after 
his own plan at home. It would be better 
for him to learn the use of tools by a logi- 
cal method which would develop the brain 
through the systematic training of the 
hand, the eye, the judgment, the taste, 
and the conscience. We have known in- 
42 



a Willaq^t Ctiucatton ^js^ociation 

stances where a ladies' club started vacation 
schools in manual training for boys and 
in cooking for girls, and after a time in- 
duced the school committee to make these 
subjects an organic part of the school 
work, contributing the tools and appli- 
ances on hand toward starting the new de- 
partment. 

The social service committee of the 
association can help ambitious boys and 
girls in countless ways to make a place in 
the world for themselves by securing, for 
example, an apprenticeship, by finding a 
way to earn money with which to go to 
college, or to study art or music or engi- 
neering, or anything worthy the ambition 
of American youth. 

In sections rich in historic treasure the 
association can serve the schools, and 
adults too, by collecting articles and re- 

43 



a a^illage education a^^octatton 

cording and preserving historic data before 
the people who know whereof they speak 
pass off the stage. In time, memorial 
tablets, if merely of wood, can be put up 
to mark historic spots, and not only add 
interest to the neighborhood, but greatly 
increase in the minds of children an hon- 
orable pride in the town in which they live. 

One very interesting and instructive 
thing is to prepare a loan exhibition of 
relics and curios, of books and of pictures 
which are works of art. The old town 
itself will be surprised to know what treas- 
ures are contained in its own homes. The 
small admission fee charged can be applied 
to the purchase of a new set of slides for 
the lantern, or new books for the library. 

The association can hire a lantern and 
slides, and even a lecturer, and thus in- 
terest pupils in life outside of their own 
little community. They will want to pay 
a small admission to the second lecture, 

L.ofC. "^"^ 



a i^iUa^e education ajsjsociation 

and so raise money to buy a lantern and 
slides. In many cities slides on various 
subjects are now loaned by the public libra- 
ries, and neighboring villages could ex- 
change slides and thus save expense. 

School furnishing and decoration is a 
matter largely dependent on the parent, 
for decoration with pictures and casts is 
furnished for the most part by private aid, 
and the furnishing with apparatus which 
almost every city and country school needs 
is largely a question of whether the citi- 
zens are willing to be taxed extra to pro- 
vide these things. 

Therefore it is worth while to have a 
committee looking into these subjects. 
To this committee would fall the plea- 
sant duty of making flower gardens for 
the windows, which will give an air of re- 
finement and make the long hours pass 
less tediously ; and if, unhappily, there are 

45 



a i^dlage (EDucatfon a^s^isoctatton 

sunless rooms (as there certainly should 
not be in a village), the window gardens 
may be supplemented by an aquarium, 
which is always an interesting and instruc- 
tive bit of life, especially to the smaller 
children. Suggestions for making an aqua- 
rium will be found in Teachers' Leaflet 
No. II, by Mary F. Rogers, published 
by the College of Agriculture of Cornell 
University. 

Do not forget that in the matter of 
schoolroom decoration good taste and clear 
thought go further than a long purse. 
The committee's goal must be quality, not 
quantity ; its question, not how much clay 
and paint for its money, but how much 
loveliness. The school committee may be 
induced to paint the walls, and public- 
spirited citizens may agree to furnish the 
permanent decorations, such as pictures, 
casts, and vases. 

Seventy cities and towns in Massachu- 
46 



^ i^ttlage CDucation 9ljJj3octatton 

setts have spent $ao,ooo in five years for 
works of art, yet none of the money came 
from public funds. It was all raised 
through the activity of teachers and edu- 
cation associations and by means of enter- 
tainments given by the children. Some- 
times an old citizen will give money for 
the furnishing or decoration of a school in 
which he has been a pupil. 

It requires about |ioo a room to secure 
pictures and casts of permanent value, but 
it is better to be five years in completing 
the school than to make any mistakes. 
The fundamental principle should be no 
crowding, no confusion, no clutter ; every- 
where order, peace, and beauty. 

To our committee on school adminis- 
tration, made up of teachers and school 
board members, with the superintendent 
of schools as chairman, we give, as I have 
already suggested, the reforms within the 

47 



a aatUage Ctiwcation ajs^ociation 

schools ; as reducing the number of pupils 
in charge of one teacher, giving her a 
chance to discover and encourage individ- 
ual aptitudes, and all other needed re- 
forms. We simply ask them (to start the 
ball rolling) whether there is not some- 
thing better for the child than a system 
in which everybody must take the same 
course in the same length of time, in the 
same way, and be worried at the same in- 
tervals over the same arbitrary and formal 
tests, and finally waste the same number 
of precious years in the same weary and 
monotonous drudgery on the same sub- 
jects, too many of which have long since 
ceased to Interest them. 

An outlook committee is a useful ad- 
junct to an education association, its 
function being to report from time to time 
the new, interesting, useful, and success- 
ful school experiments under trial in other 
48 



a t^iUage Ctiucatfon aijsjsocfatfon 

villages, cities, states, or countries. This 
committee should also bring to the general 
association the practical or practicable re- 
sults of the deliberations and papers of 
the National Education Association, and 
should also report upon the subjects pre- 
sented in the reports and bulletins of the 
National Bureau of Education, — informa- 
tion as to what other education associa- 
tions are doing, what foreign educators are 
doing, etc. 

For the moment I will transform myself 
into an outlook committee, and report on 
an interesting experiment now being tried 
in the little village of Hyannis, Mass., 
under the direction of the principal of the 
local Normal School. 

In connection with the course in the 
Model School, which forms a part of the 
Normal School, it was determined last 
spring that one of the classes should, in 
place of manual training work, take charge 
49 



^ a^illage CDucatton ^jsjsoctation 

of a school garden. A section of the 
campus about one hundred feet by fifty 
feet was fertiHzed, ploughed, and harrowed. 
This land was then turned over to the 
boys and girls, under the direction of their 
teachers. 

While the land was being prepared for 
gardening, the boys and girls gained some 
valuable experience in sending carefully 
written letters to various seedmen. They 
also gained some practical knowledge of 
mensuration by measuring and plotting 
the garden and setting apart various sec- 
tions for different kinds of seeds. 

When the weather was suitable the 
children began preparing the ground for 
planting, and on pleasant days worked in 
the garden about an hour each afternoon. 
Different kinds of seeds were planted in 
their seasons, some, like lettuce and sweet 
corn, being planted at different times. 

Records were kept in books of the pur- 

50 



a a^tllage Ctiucation ajjjSoctation 

pose and time of planting, the time of 
coming up, and the various changes of 
growing plants. Plants were compared as 
to their relative rate and manner of growth. 
The first radishes were sold, and for these 
the boys and girls who tended the garden 
received their first check. This, with other 
checks and cash received from the sale of 
garden produce during the summer and 
fall, amounting in all to more than thirty 
dollars, was deposited in the local bank. 
All the boys and girls who had worked 
upon the garden went to the bank and 
learned exactly how to make a deposit, and 
to draw out money, and how to make and 
use all necessary business forms. 

In connection with their work, they 
also were taught to save the best seeds for 
the next year's planting, and had their at- 
tention directed to forms of fruit and seeds, 
and the relation of plants to certain forms 
of animal life, such as the larvas on the 

51 



a BtUage €t)ucatton ^jsjsociation 

tomatoes and turnips. They also became 
very observant of weather conditions. 

This work proved so attractive that they 
were glad to spend an extra hour of each 
pleasant afternoon in working out of doors. 

Among other forms of industrial work 
carried on in this Model School, with the 
assistance and cooperation of the homes, 
are sewing, weaving, carpentering, ham- 
mock-making, basket-making, and hat- 
making. The purchase of the raw material 
for these things was made with a portion of 
the money obtained from the sale of garden 
products. The hammocks, baskets, etc., 
are sold to summer visitors and others, and 
the children have thus grown in the sense 
of their own power to do something that 
has a commercial value. A large part of 
this work is conducted outside school 
hours as ordinarily understood, and ap- 
parently adds much to the interest of the 
boys and girls in all of their work. 

52 



^ iDtllage Ctiucatton a^j^ociatton 

One of the younger classes has been for 
some time at work upon a play house, 
which has been built by the pupils of the 
school and for which they are making fur- 
niture and household utensils in minia- 
ture. At the same time they are learning 
to contrast the modes of life in this coun- 
try with the modes of life in other lands. 

You village people are to be congratu- 
lated that your life and conditions, or what 
may be your conditions, are so much 
nearer the ideal life than are ours who live 
in cities. We have some advantages over 
you, but we have harder problems to 
solve; you have more advantages over 
us and fewer, if not easier, problems to 
solve ; but be they many or few, difficult 
or easy, you will solve them in due time 
if you faint not, and your village will 
become more distinctly conscious of a 
community life, and the truth will grow 

S2, 



a i^tUafie CDucatton a^sjsociation 

on you that the welfare of all is the con- 
cern of each. 

It is Tennyson's bold declaration that 
if he could understand the little flower in 
the crannied wall, roots and all, he should 
know what God and man is ; and if you 
can find out what one small township 
or village is, all in all, your microcosm 
will reveal to you all sociologies and all 
philosophies. 

A village is not a little place, — the 
smallest hamlet has paths that lead to every 
corner of the world. The most obscure 
town is a visible image of the Kingdom 
of God, and its life need not be mean and 
dull. The study of a country community 
shall be our study of the universe. 



54 



>\f^ 



Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton b" Co. 
Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A, 



m 3 ^auz 



